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E117: The Lady of the Dunes
1.7k Plays4 years ago
New Englanders in the 1970s felt the imposed fear of sharks from the recent filming of Jaws in Martha’s Vineyard alongside the very real fear of a killer on the loose when, less than 100 miles away from the film site, a brutalized corpse was discovered, creating more questions than answers.
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Transcript
Inspiration and Tools for Podcasting
00:00:00
Speaker
Sleuthhounds, have you ever considered creating your own podcast? Have you been inspired by listening to some of your favorites and thought, I'd love to try this out on my own? Whether it's a true crime podcast like ours, a motivational podcast, or maybe one filled with tips and strategies for those interested in the same activities you are,
00:00:19
Speaker
When Maggie and I first decided to start our podcast, we knew absolutely nothing about what podcasting would entail. But when we found that the platform Buzzsprout was one for which we didn't need any special equipment, just a computer microphone, some quiet space, and each other, we knew that this was the way to go. It is intuitive to use, fun to play around with, and so helpful
00:00:41
Speaker
and getting analytical data about a number of downloads to track trends and for more listeners hail. Best yet, Buzzsprout is affordable, even by our teacher salary standards. Buzzsprout will get your podcasts listed on every major podcasting platform. So, what are you waiting for? Fulfill that dream of yours and start today.
00:01:03
Speaker
If you use our Coffee and Cases referral code, 709-643, linked on Facebook and in our show notes, not only will you help support our show, but you will receive a $20 Amazon gift card after your second month on a paid plan. It's that easy. Podcasting isn't hard when you have the right partners. Join over 100,000 podcasters already using Buzzsprout to get their message out to the world. Now, it's time for the world to hear what you have to say.
New True Crime Podcast Introduction
00:01:33
Speaker
Alison and I want to take a minute to introduce you to a new True Crime podcast that we think you'll love as much as we do. It comes to you from Lori Morrison, a private investigator and the creator of a faith-based True Crime podcast. So do yourself a favor, take a few minutes today and check her out. Here's a little about the show from Lori herself.
00:01:58
Speaker
Are you a true crime fan who would love to help victims in the stories that you hear, but you don't know how? You might not be sure that it's even safe to try. I'm Laurie Morrison, a licensed private investigator and Christ follower, and I'm inviting you to join me on the Unlovely Truth podcast.
00:02:16
Speaker
Each week we dissect true crime cases and then explore ways that you can be a different kind of PI. A person of impact. Because I think we all long to make a significant impact in the lives of people who are hurting. And I've got some expert guests lined up to help me show you how to do just that. So meet me at the intersection of faith and true crime and together we will get out of the audience and into the action.
00:02:51
Speaker
In a recent educational meeting I attended, we were discussing the students in our classrooms and the personal progress those students were making. Most were focusing on the numbers as evidence of growth towards mastery of a specific set of skills, often grouping students together to identify trends. All of that is good and important work in identifying gaps in education.
00:03:16
Speaker
and knowing where to target resources, reteach material, and other worthy activities. But one colleague said something that will continue to stick with me. It was said in passing, but its message to me had a higher importance than anything else said in that meeting. He said that our students need to be, quote, named and claimed, end quote.
00:03:44
Speaker
I found myself thinking about how true that statement was for every single person, not just students. We need to be named, recognized. There's a difference when someone says good job versus good job Allison. It's more powerful if I say, I see you Maggie and what you're going through versus a generic, I understand.
00:04:12
Speaker
We want to know that our efforts and our actions have impact, and that happens when we're named. But we also need to be claimed to feel like we belong to a family, a friend group, a community. With the pandemic having been so isolating in so many ways, it's important to know that we're never alone.
00:04:35
Speaker
It's because of these internal desires that need to be filled that make unidentified persons cases all the more pressing. Not only does justice need to be served in terms of someone answering for the crimes against them, but there's an added layer of sadness that their cases have the potential to fade away into anonymity. We have a duty as fellow human beings not to let that happen.
The Lady of the Dunes Mystery
00:05:03
Speaker
And this is the case of the Lady of the Dunes.
00:05:43
Speaker
Welcome to Coffee and Cases where we like our coffee hot and our cases cold. My name is Allison Williams. And my name is Maggie Dameron. We will be telling stories each week in the hopes that someone out there with any information concerning the cases will take those tips to law enforcement. So justice and closure can be brought to these families.
00:06:02
Speaker
With each case, we encourage you to continue in the conversation on our Facebook page, Coffee and Cases podcast, because as we all know, conversation helps to keep the missing person in the public consciousness, helping keep their memories alive. So sit back, sip your coffee, and listen to what's brewing this week. All right, so while Maggie is going to join me here in a moment, she was having some technical difficulties with her laptop, but that just means
00:06:32
Speaker
that I alone get to give the shout outs this week, which I'm not that sad about because I love giving you guys the praise and the love. It is my favorite time of the week. So I'm gonna go ahead and get started. Our first shout out this week goes to Jennifer S. She writes, quote, from one teacher to another, thanks to Maggie and Allison for making the morning commute fly by.
00:07:01
Speaker
I appreciate you and your work." Listen, we are podcast listeners on our morning commute as well, so thank you so much, Jennifer, for choosing us to spend time with in the mornings.
00:07:18
Speaker
Our second shout out goes to Autumn Cole. Autumn said, quote, you all are awesome and have covered some cases I've never heard before. And I love that. And you all are so sweet. Thank you for being so awesome. End quote. Well, I personally think that Autumn is the sweet one for making that kind comment. Thank you, Autumn.
00:07:42
Speaker
And our final shout out goes to Julia. Julia, thank you so much for listening, for supporting us on Patreon, and for being a faithful listener. If you would like to get immediate access to bonus content,
00:08:02
Speaker
Learn a little bit more about Maggie and me and hear your name read on the show. Be sure to subscribe to our Patreon page at patreon.com forward slash coffee and cases podcast, all one word. And if you are already one of our Patreon members, but you have yet to fill out the shout out form, don't forget to do so because I especially, but really we,
00:08:29
Speaker
want to announce your name or nickname or pseudonym or whatever you care to share and to celebrate you. Now, let me get Maggie on the line and we can get into this week's episode. All right, welcome Maggie. I told our listeners that you were logging in. Y'all just let me tell you.
00:08:53
Speaker
I hate technology. It is now 933 p.m. and I have been trying to log on to record this episode with Allison since 745 p.m. It sucks. I kept sending like the laughing crying emojis and Maggie was like
00:09:17
Speaker
angry about this technology. This is so mad. The computer about went out the second story window. I'm not going to lie. But listen, you made it. It's all right with the world now. Yeah, I'm here now. This is what counts. All right. Well, our setting this week is Provincetown, Massachusetts. Sounds very upscale.
00:09:44
Speaker
Well, and it's very artsy. It's this little seaside town on the northern tip of Cape Cod, which I've never been there, but sounds beautiful. Yeah, sounds like we love it. Yes, and Provincetown, I guess that's a mouthful, so it's lovingly referred to as P-town, which then makes me think of urine, so it's not as pretty, but whatever. Yeah.
00:10:13
Speaker
But it is this place with all of the New England charm of lighthouses and seafood, beautiful beaches. I know. The town is actually nicknamed America's Best Beach Town. Okay, well now I kind of want to go.
00:10:29
Speaker
I know it has like 40 miles of beaches, including Racepoint Beach and Herring Cove Beach. Plus, this is what makes me want to go, and you will too after I tell you this, you can go on whale watching tours. Yes, I know. Yep. So this dolphin fleet in Provincetown guarantees a whale sighting on the excursions April through October.
00:10:59
Speaker
Sign me up. I have actually been whale watching before in Hawaii. Did you see one? I did. I saw a humpback whale. I know. Yeah, it was beautiful and terrifying all at the same time. Yeah, because it could totally swallow you whole. Oh, yeah, it was huge. So we definitely need to go here. Yes. And we'll go right after we go to the pumpkin festival from a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, and that ice cave.
00:11:29
Speaker
Right. Yeah.
00:11:31
Speaker
And Provincetown, in addition to the whale watching and the lighthouses and all of that, is, like I said a second ago, it's this place of art and culture and it's filled with boutiques and restaurants and tons of art galleries. And one trait that kept coming up in every source I read about Provincetown was how inclusive this historic town is and how welcoming to the LGBTQ plus community.
00:12:00
Speaker
Well, that's awesome. Every source. Yeah, I feel like that's kind of unexpected. That's awesome. Yeah, especially in a historic town. But it was near one of those beautiful beaches that Provincetown is known for that led to a discovery prompting a mystery that today nearly 48 years later
00:12:25
Speaker
still demands answers. All right, let's go. And listen Maggie, this first part is going to remind you of a detail from your case last week because it was a dog that led to the discovery. I was getting ready to say, Allison, you know I've already forgot half of the details from last case, but that one I remembered.
00:12:50
Speaker
So I'm guessing you didn't make remembering your New Year's resolution, like Anthony said. Oh, no, no. We've got far more important things. Yeah, I'm not going to waste my time with that. What are you talking about? So it was July 26, 1974, and a 12-year-old little girl named Leslie Metcalf was visiting Race Point Beach with her family. They had just, well,
00:13:20
Speaker
We're going to get a couple of different stories about what she was doing that day, but either way, it ends up being exactly the same. But one version said that she and her family had finished a day of hiking, which I'm out on that. I don't do physical exertion like that.
00:13:38
Speaker
But they were headed back to the province lands visitor center when Leslie's beagle got excited and ran off. The other version, which is slightly different, that was told in a Boston Globe article from 1974, said that Leslie was 13 rather than 12. But again,
00:14:02
Speaker
potato, potato. And instead of spending the day hiking with her family that she had spent the day at a friend's cottage on the seashore. I like that better. When the beagle ran off. I do too. Yeah. I'm good sitting around at a cottage. Yeah. Cottage by the seashore. So we'll go with that one. Yeah. Yeah. Either way, the beagle ran off and eventually she caught up to the dog at a point that was about a mile east
00:14:30
Speaker
of the Race Point Beach Ranger Station, and the dog had honed in on the scent of decay. And, like, beagles are, like, that's their thing, right? Oh, they're hunting dogs. Yeah. Exactly.
00:14:46
Speaker
So that totally makes sense. And at first, Leslie thought that the dog had just located a dead deer because she just sees like a mound in the distance. But when she got closer, Maggie, she realized that it was the figure of a woman. Oh, that's traumatizing. Mm hmm.
00:15:06
Speaker
It would be traumatizing regardless, I think, for a 12-year-old or 13-year-old to stumble upon a site like that. But this particular site was gruesome and it had to have been even more traumatizing. First, the body was very badly decomposed. It had been there in the elements.
00:15:31
Speaker
Again, there's some variety in the sources and what the experts say. Some pathologists say that the body had been there around four to five days, but there are other pathologists that put it somewhere closer to three weeks.
00:15:48
Speaker
Yeah and the body was like tucked away in the foliage in the sands of the dunes about 15 feet away from an access road. Well you know according to that one episode we did it could have just been sucked into the sand dune. Oh yeah that was terrifying also. That was in the Beaumont children. Yeah.
00:16:15
Speaker
Well, several sources stated that there were two sets of footprints and a set of tire marks also near this access road. So that makes me think it was not three weeks. True, because you think all of that would have been like blown away by the wind or whatever.
00:16:35
Speaker
But what's weird is that I didn't read anywhere like the size of the tires. And I only know that tires are different sizes from having to get replacement tires on my vehicles. But you know, they have like three numbers or whatever. They all mean something. I don't know what they mean, but there are different sizes. So I read nothing about like the size of the tires where they like tried to predict the kind of vehicle, you know, that had left these tire prints.
00:17:04
Speaker
And the police chief at the time, James Meads, just said this to the Boston Globe, quote, they could have been connected or they could have not been connected. How do you know? End quote. And I read it is probably exactly how I said it. Yes. Maybe not. It could not have been. How do you know?
00:17:32
Speaker
I was so infuriated. I was like, what kind of question is that from a police chief? And what's the likelihood that they would not be connected? Slim to nothing. Yeah. I feel like even if they're not, I'd rather know that they're not than just assume. Yeah. Oh, so I'll set my anger to the side for a minute. Cause I'll get angry again in a second. I also did not read.
00:18:00
Speaker
Any details about whether the footprints were likely made by two females, two males, a male and a female, or what?
Police Investigation and Challenges
00:18:11
Speaker
The only thing noted in early reports was that the footprints trailed off into the nearby sand and disappeared. Oh, okay. And then one other comment, but I'm gonna wait to bring it up for the theories. So I wonder if they took like, tire impressions and feet impressions.
00:18:31
Speaker
I don't think so. I think they were like, well, we don't really know if it's connected, so. It could be. It could not be. Oh well. Yeah. How do you know? Yeah. Also, I found this interesting, and wait till you hear the response on this one. Scrawled in the sand in the opposite direction of the footprints was a large S-O-S.
00:18:58
Speaker
Okay? So I'd be like, well, obviously that's connected. But police at the time determined that, quote, there was no indication it had been the victim, end quote, who scrawled those letters. So they're just assuming that it's coincidence that someone wrote SOS yards away from a dead body? Okay. Correct. Okay.
00:19:23
Speaker
But, Maggie, it was not the decomposition that has made it difficult over the years to identify the woman who is now known as the Lady of the Dunes, but what was taken from her that has made it difficult. So we don't know who she is? No.
00:19:46
Speaker
I'll talk about some theories. But first, I'll give you the details of what we do know, and then I'll explain the difficulties based upon what was missing. Like, I'm really scared that you're going to tell me, like, they cut her fingertips off or something so they can't do fingerprints. You have no idea how close you are. Oh, God. Oh, God.
00:20:09
Speaker
So here's what we know. The woman's body was found face down on half of a green beach towel. Some sources said a green blanket. So I'm guessing it was just one of those like really big. Like it had just been ripped in half? No, it's whole, but she is laying on half of it. Okay. Maggie's already getting violent with the beach towel too. Like dang.
00:20:36
Speaker
Yeah. An article by Jim Rowley for Ranker.com noted that it was almost as if she had been sharing the towel with someone, so each person using half of it. She was nude and right under her head, like propping it up as if used for a pillow, were her Wrangler jeans neatly folded and a blue bandana.
00:21:05
Speaker
So either she's been placed like this or like completely caught off guard and killed quickly. And I think either one of those could be correct. OK. Her long auburn hair was pulled back with a glittery hairband and her toenails were painted pink.
00:21:26
Speaker
These are the details that we know. A 1974 article in the Boston Globe stated, and I didn't see this anywhere else, but I did see it in that original article from 1974, that the other half of the green towel had been folded over to cover her face. Which would make it personal. Yes, that's what I think.
00:21:52
Speaker
The left side of the woman's head had been crushed.
00:21:58
Speaker
According to an article more recently from the Boston Globe by Teresa Hannafin, quote, a chunk of the skull about the size of a hand is missing and a jagged eight inch crack runs across the top and so like literally someone like took a rock or something and bash this lady's head in. So they have
00:22:25
Speaker
guessed as to what the weapon could have been. They do say that this was the blow that killed the woman. However, in addition to that blow to the skull, her head had also been nearly decapitated. Yes, like barely still attached. Like nearly headless Nick from Harry Potter.
00:22:50
Speaker
Yeah, and they think that it was decapitated with what authorities now believe was something similar to, and I kept reading this over and over and over, so I looked it up, a military entrenching tool. I'm Googling it right now. Which, yeah, for all intents and purposes, it looks like a shovel that's just slightly more angled in shape. Yeah, and like maybe a little smaller.
00:23:18
Speaker
than a typical shovel, like the handle. Right. So that's what they think was used for the near decapitation, which I don't know if that's something you could buy just anywhere. So you would think like that would be a clue. Well, now you can get them on Amazon, but in 1974, I don't really know where you would get them. I guess like your Army Navy store or something. Maybe.
00:23:44
Speaker
Or, you know, they could have been someone in the military and they had this handy. Yeah. We also know that likely post-mortem, she had also been the victim of a sexual assault by a wooden object. Oh my God.
00:24:02
Speaker
Yeah, so this, again, when I say it would be traumatizing to see a dead body, and then I say, but what this dead body looked like would be extremely traumatizing, now you know why. Yeah. So because of the decomposition, it was difficult to determine how old the victim was.
00:24:26
Speaker
The best that they could determine was that she was somewhere between 25 and 35 years old, but she could have been as old as in her 40s. So that's a pretty big range. Yeah, yeah. She was roughly five foot six and weighed around 145 pounds with an athletic build. Okay. So that's what we know.
00:24:53
Speaker
But as I mentioned a moment ago, Maggie, it was what was absent from the scene that made it difficult to determine what happened and who it happened to. So the first thing that was missing was a sign of struggle. Yeah, because she's neatly on the towel with her jeans and she's laying there. Like she's sun tanning. Right. And yet her injuries are gruesome and violent.
00:25:22
Speaker
Yeah, so you would expect there to be a lot of blood.
00:25:24
Speaker
Yeah, you would think that there would be signs of a scuffle everywhere, like broken foliage and footprints and different things like that. But it's just like you just said. I mean, it was almost as though she had just been lying there when the blow was struck, as if she were blissfully unaware that her life were in danger. So could she have been tanning in the nude when someone just wandered upon her and savagely killed her?
00:25:52
Speaker
like she maybe fell asleep in the sun or something. Yeah, that's one thought is that maybe she was sleeping when it happened. Could the murder have been committed by someone who she trusted? And that's why there's no sign of a struggle. I still feel like there'd be blood though. There was some, but not as much as there should have been given the injuries. Yeah. And then
00:26:19
Speaker
I keep going back, like you mentioned a minute ago, to the covering up of the face, because that does seem to indicate to me that it was committed by somebody who she knew, because that usually shows shame or guilt. But to determine the answer to those questions, was she just simply tanning in the nude and somebody snuck up on her? Was she with somebody who she trusted? To answer all of those questions,
00:26:48
Speaker
We kind of need to know who this woman is. Right, because we would need to know what's normal for her. Exactly. Yeah. Does she normally tan in the nude? Did she come here with a friend? And if so, who? Yeah. But there was no wallet, no purse, and no ID.
00:27:09
Speaker
which then leads us to the second set of circumstances that made identification difficult and this is the part that you were close to the other things that were missing most notably Maggie the woman's hands oh my god yes okay
00:27:32
Speaker
Yeah, whoever had committed this crime had severed the young woman's hands, making identification all the more difficult because fingerprints are our go-to in terms of identifying individuals. And one article that I read even said this is horrifying and creepy and I don't know if you're ready for it.
00:27:59
Speaker
One article I read even said that in place of her hands were piles of pine needles. Like as if they'd been like piled up and like intentionally left there where her hands should be. Like you're making a snowman but not. Right. Oh God. That's even more creepy than cutting her hands off. I know.
00:28:26
Speaker
I know. And so I don't know, there were a couple of sources that said piles of pine needles in place of her hands. So I don't know if it were just like piles haphazardly on the ground or intentional piles, you know, kind of the same dilemma that we talked about with your case last week with the Jeanette de Palma case. Oh, yeah. Were they crosses or did the branches fall that way? Right.
00:28:55
Speaker
Also missing was a portion of the woman's forearm. So that makes me think like, was there something there that was identified? Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. And so that's why that was removed because that seems really odd to me.
00:29:17
Speaker
And I mean, not to say that somebody deranged couldn't do an act that, you know, doesn't make any sense without reason. But, um, but that's what it makes me think is that there had to have been something identifiable. Right. Cause you took the hands off. So we no longer have fingerprints. And then if there was like a really like personal tattoo or something like that, then or a mole maybe or something, then
Identity Theories and Leads
00:29:41
Speaker
they were. Yeah. Right. And finally, Maggie, several,
00:29:47
Speaker
teeth had been pulled from the mouth of the lady of the dunes. Why? So I don't know. Several reports that I read said it seems as though that final act
00:30:03
Speaker
had to have been pulling teeth because it almost seems as though that act were cut short. So I don't know if like somebody was coming or... Oh, like they meant to hurt all of them, but they didn't. Right. But she was missing several of her teeth. Despite missing several teeth though, law enforcement were still able to come to some conclusions actually based upon what teeth were left. They said that she had quote unquote expensive
00:30:32
Speaker
and extensive dental work done. In fact, they said she had several gold crowns in what law enforcement would call, and I quote, New York style dental work.
00:30:47
Speaker
What's that? Fancy pants, fancy pants dental work. Yeah, like, I don't know if like, because it's glitzy because of all the gold, like, so do I have Kentucky dental work? Like, what am I getting? No, that's Mountain Dew now, Taliesin. Oh, okay. Yeah, so I have no idea what, what that means.
00:31:11
Speaker
But maybe they were pulling her teeth to get the gold off of them. Which it could be. Or maybe at that time do they know you could get DNA out of teeth? Yes, because they did use the teeth. So maybe that's what they were doing. Maybe. And articles did say in that Teresa Hannafin Boston Globe article that the gold crowns in her mouth were worth about $5,000 to $8,000 at the time.
00:31:41
Speaker
Wow. I'm just thinking for that amount of money, I hope they had diamonds in them. Yeah, for real. I hope you had good dental insurance, lady. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Or else there went your whole paycheck. Yeah.
00:31:55
Speaker
I will also add that upon the medical examiner's inspection, there were also no foreign substances in her system. So like there's no alcohol, there's no evidence of drugs, like anything like that. But she did have burgers and fries in her stomach, which indicated that she had just come from one of the nearby small towns.
00:32:20
Speaker
Which makes me think she almost had to be with someone because I'm not somebody that like, or maybe she took it there and ate it. Cause like, I'm just somebody, if I'm by myself, I do not like going into like a restaurant and eating alone. Like I feel weird doing that. Then you'd think there'd be rappers or something there. That's true. And there's not, unless animals carry them away, I guess. Yeah. Or the wind maybe. Right.
00:32:44
Speaker
I want to just take a minute to comment on the scene that this little girl, little Leslie stumbled upon because you mentioned it earlier and I couldn't agree more. It feels very staged to me. Like enough to make me wonder if this were the actual crime scene. Well, I'm telling you, I feel it in my gut that it isn't.
00:33:09
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, because it doesn't jive that her death and the aftermath was so brutally violent, you know, because even after this person has murdered her, they're nearly decapitating her, cutting off her hands, and then violating her with a wooden object.
00:33:26
Speaker
Yeah, and then to see her just laying on the towel as if sunbathing and her jeans and bandana neatly stacked under her head and no signs of a struggle marked in the surrounding area, that does not fit. Okay, this is off topic, kind of, but this discussion, so my New Year's resolution, because we're talking about that.
00:33:52
Speaker
I love to read, but I never make time to read. So my new year's resolution is that I'm going to read at least two books every month, which for me right now is a lot because I never make time to read like during the school year. So I just finished Gone Girl. Have you read this book? No, I did. Don't read the book. I haven't watched the movie, but I'm
00:34:18
Speaker
like don't I mean like the writing is great this author is a lovely writer but like I would read and be like super obsessed and then a twist would happen and I would have to sit it down for like three days before I could because I would get so mad.
00:34:34
Speaker
Oh, so like if you want a book that ends in the complete opposite way that you would think it would end or you want it to end Then it's the book for you If you want a book that ends with a happy ending and you are completely satisfied with how things turn out do not read it. Okay. Oh So there's my book review And I say that because this like what you're talking about reminds me of Like a scene in that book. So yeah
00:35:03
Speaker
Yeah, like, Oh, okay. Okay. You got a little teaser there. Yeah. So with this, though, it doesn't jive. And you said you feel in your gut, I feel it in mind too, that the murder and the dismemberment was committed elsewhere. And that she was like, brought here to be left. Yep.
00:35:28
Speaker
And there were a lot of people who actually found it difficult to believe that something this awful could have happened here as well. Even former Provincetown Police Chief Jeff Jaron stated, quote, it was a horrific, brutal murder. Yeah. It would be awful for any time, any place, but for the Cape, for Provincetown, end quote, like he's in disbelief that something like that could happen there.
00:35:56
Speaker
An Article 4 true crime edition from September 8, 2021 noted, though I could not corroborate this information, that police did have one way to follow potential leads. According to that article, since the area was a park, everyone who visited the park at the time had his or her license plate recorded. Okay. However,
00:36:24
Speaker
not only did every plate lead to a dead end, but looking into the plates actually left police still wondering how this woman could have gotten to such a remote location when they could find no indication of a woman matching this description, even arriving to the park. But there are tire tracks there. So I feel like a car had to get there. Maybe they used a phony license plate.
00:36:54
Speaker
That could be. I don't even know if that's a thing, but I don't either. Like one that's not renewed. I don't, I don't even know. Maybe they stole a license plate. Yeah, maybe they did. Because they're smart like that. Yeah. Police even found the owners of all of the abandoned vehicles and bicycles in the area and they were also able to rule out each one of them as well. Wow.
00:37:22
Speaker
All we have to go on are theories. And here we are. Okay, let's do it. Okay. Theory number one actually developed when a call came in to local law enforcement from a woman in Maryland. She argued that this lady of the dunes could be her sister who had moved to Boston
00:37:47
Speaker
and with whom this Maryland woman had lost contact immediately following that move. That's weird to me, but okay. Yeah. So she's like, what if this was my sister? That I no longer talk to. Yeah. Sources that I read merely stated that this lead was quote unquote inconclusive. Okay. I read an article from 1987
00:38:16
Speaker
that the police chief at the time, again, this is frustrating, had asked that the woman, this Maryland woman, mail in dental records for her sister to be compared with the lady of the dune, and that he was, quote, waiting for them to arrive any day. This was in 1987.
00:38:37
Speaker
I read nothing about an update or information after that. So he's like, they might get here. They might not. Who really is? And see, and I wish I had written down this quote, but in a couple of the sources I read, one of the chiefs who had been assigned to this case, it wasn't one of the recent ones, but one of the original ones
00:38:58
Speaker
Like it might have even been the same one who was like, it could have been associated. It could not have been. Who knows? But basically said like, yeah, I got all of these calls coming in, but I'm only going to follow up on the ones that I think are worthwhile.
00:39:17
Speaker
Like even with that, like not even questioning this woman from Maryland was like, well, send me the dental records and then we'll talk. I mean, that's kind of the impression that I got. So really no urgency in figuring out who this woman is. Right. And so I'm, I'm just assuming either those records never came or maybe they didn't match. I have no idea. So that's theory one. Theory two.
00:39:44
Speaker
is that the Lady of the Dunes was actually a known bank robber and drug dealer, Rory Jean Kessinger. I don't know if it's Kessinger or Kessinger. I feel like we had a kid that had that last name. I'm going to say Kessinger. Yeah. I'm going to say Rory. We'll go by the first name.
00:40:07
Speaker
had been a 15-year-old runaway who had a long run of bank robberies, all while assuming five or more different aliases before going to prison for her crimes. Wow. Yes. Now, going back to the beginning of the episode, remember the Lady of the Dunes body was discovered in 1974. Yeah.
00:40:31
Speaker
and Kessinger had escaped from Massachusetts Plymouth County Correctional Facility the year before in 1973. That's a mouthful. Massachusetts Plymouth County Correctional Facility. Correctional Facility, yes. She had escaped the year before in 1973 and had been at large since then. So could this be her? Physically, the Lady of the Dunes and Kessinger were
00:41:00
Speaker
extremely similar in stature and appearance. However, a familial DNA test was performed with DNA from Kessinger's mother and it did not match the lady of the dunes.
00:41:20
Speaker
The ranker.com article that I read instead reported that the test results were inconclusive instead of not a match. Okay, so inconclusive shows a little bit of possibility. Right. To play devil's advocate, and then I'll come back around and say why some people think it is still Kessinger. To play devil's advocate though, Kessinger was known for heavy illicit drug use. And if you remember,
00:41:49
Speaker
the lady of the dunes, there were no substances found in her. Like how long do drugs stay in one system? That I don't know. I mean, I would guess even in three weeks, there'd be something. Yeah. Yeah. Especially like if you're not like, you know, your blood isn't pumping and you know, all that stuff. Yeah. Right.
00:42:18
Speaker
Now, there are those who do believe still that even if the lady of the dunes isn't Kessinger, that Kessinger had something to do with the crime. So Kessinger was never found, and there are those who theorize that maybe
00:42:45
Speaker
Kessinger and her getaway driver saw this young woman, noted the remarkable resemblances between Kessinger and the lady, and killed her, taking her ID and assuming her identity.
00:43:02
Speaker
I mean, which would kind of explain why she's missing her hands, her teeth. Yeah, because then it makes it look like, could this woman be Kessinger? And so then people are like, oh, she's dead when really Kessinger is alive and has assumed the identity of this woman.
00:43:19
Speaker
Which, if this happened, this Kessinger lady is extremely smart. Yes. Like, holy crap, wow. Yep, yep. Like, very sad that the lady of the dunes is dead, but remarkable that you were able to pull this off if this is you. Yeah, like faking her own death. Yeah. Okay, so that's theory two.
00:43:44
Speaker
Years later in 1987, theory number three was presented. A Canadian woman, similar to theory one, contacted law enforcement with an odd memory. She stated that she and her father had visited Provincetown in the 1970s and that she had actually witnessed her father strangle a woman.
00:44:08
Speaker
Okay, again, if you do not want me to tell on you, do not commit a crime in front of me. If my daddy had strangled somebody, I would have been calling police that day, not in 1987. I know. Yeah, like 17 years later? Yeah.
00:44:24
Speaker
So this Canadian woman speculated that the unidentified lady of the dunes could be that woman who she saw her father strangle. With this theory, there were a couple of added steps though. So she's Canadian, so she contacted the Canadian authorities.
00:44:42
Speaker
The Canadian authorities then had to pass that information along to the Massachusetts state police. And by the time the police in Massachusetts had the information and tried to contact the woman, she had moved away. And now there's no way to follow up on her claims.
00:44:59
Speaker
So is that how that has to work? Like now, if a Canadian saw something, they would have to call the Canadian police. They couldn't just call like the Massachusetts state police or whatever. I'm going to say that they can probably call the Massachusetts state police. Yeah. Cause that's like, that's like similar to the like near school shooting that happened in Kentucky and the lady that wasn't from Kentucky called the Kentucky state police. Yep.
00:45:26
Speaker
Thank goodness that she did. Yes, hero. Yep. Cause it stopped a school shooting from happening. Um, theory four is a mobster murder.
00:45:41
Speaker
There are many people who, while they don't speculate on the identity of the Lady of the Dunes, do speculate on the identity of the killer as Irish mob boss James Whitey Bulger. I didn't even know the thing. Or Bulger. I didn't know Irish people had mobs. Apparently so. Okay. Because he was one.
00:46:12
Speaker
While, I'll call him Whitey, because I don't know which way to pronounce his last name. While Whitey has never been named a suspect in the case, so let me clarify that. Never been named a suspect in the case. There are those who suspect him because he had removed teeth from a previous female victim, Debbie Davis, before dumping her body in a remote location
00:46:40
Speaker
like the Lady of the Dunes. You know, I think I've actually read about this Debbie Davis. That name sounds really familiar.
00:46:49
Speaker
A couple of the other details that might indicate Whitey played a role were that, number one, the green blanket was believed to be from a club called the Crown and Anchor that Whitey was known to frequent in Provincetown. And number two, the only detail, I told you I'd come back to the footprint and I said there was one thing that I read, the only detail I found about footprints was that one was from a size 10
00:47:19
Speaker
shoe, which could be a woman with a large foot. Yeah. Or a man. Yeah. So it was from a size 10 shoe that looked as though the person wearing these shoes had been running away from the scene.
00:47:37
Speaker
and Whitey, this mob boss, was known to have worn a size 10 shoe. But my problem is, as a mob boss, I don't really see him running away from a scene. Yeah, I feel like you're kind of a baddie if you're a mob boss. And like a size 10 male shoe is pretty common. I feel like that's a pretty common size. Yeah.
00:48:04
Speaker
We will sadly never know because Whitey was murdered in prison in 2018. Wow. Okay. Theory five. And the reason, let me clarify too, like the reason why my theories go back and forth between like identity of the lady of the dunes or identity of her killer is because I feel like
00:48:29
Speaker
Either one of those questions needs to be answered, and we don't know the answer to either one. And so I feel like if we can theorize an answer for one side of the problem, it gets us one step closer to solving it all. Yeah, I agree. If that makes sense. So theory five is that the killer was a man by the name of Haddon Clark.
00:48:54
Speaker
while in prison for two other murders, and he claimed to have committed at least 12, he confessed to having killed the lady of the dunes. In one particular statement, and I will, I'll use new words other than the words that he used in his quote. Okay, we're gonna make it PG. Yes, he said,
00:49:24
Speaker
quote, I could have told the police what her name was. But after they beat the crap out of me, I wasn't going to tell them crap. This murder is still unsolved. And what the police are looking for is in my grandfather's garden. Oh, so maybe like a murder weapon or like her hands or something? Something. He also told a reporter
00:49:52
Speaker
I can't believe, I don't know how you're gonna react to this, Maggie. Okay. He told a reporter that he had lured a lady to a remote area and had struck her with a fishing rod. Okay, so do we know that what they may have used as a blunt instrument, was it a fishing rod? We do not. I feel like a fishing rod would not make that big of a place in someone's head. That's what I'm thinking too. Then he said, when he realized that she was dead. Okay, I have a question before you tell me the rest of this.
00:50:23
Speaker
The details that he is telling like that she was struck in the head were those details that were made public or is he saying things that people wouldn't have known? They were made public.
Confessions and Theories
00:50:34
Speaker
Okay. Which is why there's some question about the validity. Okay. So he told a reporter that after striking her in the head and realizing that she was dead,
00:50:48
Speaker
He said he then went back to his grandparents' house, because his grandparents lived in Cape Cod, went back to his grandparents' house to get a saw, and that he then proceeded to cut off the woman's hands and use her fingers as fish bait. Oh my God, heartless. Yeah. Either way, true or false, heartless.
00:51:18
Speaker
Yeah, like, I can't even imagine somebody who would make that up. Yeah. But it wasn't just this confession, though, Maggie. Clark actually mailed a letter to a friend in 2004, again, saying that he killed a woman in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, again, where his grandparents did have a home. And in that letter were contained two drawings. One was of a naked woman lying on her stomach.
00:51:49
Speaker
And her hands had been cut off in that drawing. And the second one was a map showing where the body was found. So like the map would that have been like would he have had access to that or was that like saying like he could have done this, you know? Right. And I don't know.
00:52:14
Speaker
Many people do believe, though, that this was a false confession because Clark suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. And so therefore, many law enforcement agents
00:52:25
Speaker
don't trust the validity of that confession, because they're like, he said so much that was made up, that it was hard to like, Yeah. And despite the drawings, there was no physical evidence to link Clark to the killing of the lady of the dunes. But I will tell you that police did search his grandparents property. But, and they didn't find any human remains.
00:52:56
Speaker
but they did find many pieces of jewelry, hundreds of pieces, in fact, believed to have belonged to his many victims. So like, were his grandparents alive and living in this house and thought nothing about all these pieces of jewelry he kept bringing? Yeah, I don't know if they were like hidden. I just know that law enforcement found them. It's disturbing. Yes. And our final theory
00:53:25
Speaker
Theory number six actually developed fairly recently in 2015. Horror writer Stephen King's son, Joe Hill, had been pouring his time into murder mysteries and then had recently seen an episode of this TV show called Haunting Evidence. And that TV episode had centered on the Lady of the Dunes mystery.
00:53:54
Speaker
Joe Hill, Stephen King's son, happened to, during that same time, be at an anniversary showing of the blockbuster film Jaws. Right? So he's watching Jaws. And while watching the film in the theater, something bizarre caught his attention. I'm very intrigued by the story. Oh, yeah. So he, of course, he's sitting in a movie theater. He can't press rewind. So we had to watch the film later. And again,
00:54:23
Speaker
He saw it, or rather her. An extra in the film was a young woman with long auburn hair. Her hair was pulled back in a blue bandana and she was wearing, you guessed it, Wrangler blue jeans.
00:54:45
Speaker
So physically, this woman fit the lady of the dunes. I mean, we would know who this is, right? Like they would have record of that, the people that made jobs. That's the problem. So I know everything about her physically matched, like age, weight, height, dress.
00:55:09
Speaker
even the time period and the location fit because Jaws was filmed only a few hours drive from Provincetown. It was filmed in Martha's Vineyard. And the film was shot between May and October of 1974, which is within the timeframe of when the Lady of the Dunes was killed.
00:55:30
Speaker
Over the past several decades, there have been several attempts at facial reconstruction. And each time, luckily, it has gotten better and more realistic. So like the first were these clay replicas that were constructed early on in 1979.
00:55:47
Speaker
In 2006, they did some age regression drawings that were commissioned, like just in case maybe somebody might recognize the face of this woman from her younger years. But in 2010, and I'll tell you why I'm bringing this up.
00:56:04
Speaker
In 2010, previous Provincetown Police Chief Jaren sent the young woman's skull to be studied by forensic teams with Smithsonian's National Museum of History and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, who together were able to complete a CT scan of the skull to create a likely image of her face. And I have to agree that the most recent image looks a lot like the jaws
00:56:34
Speaker
Extra so sleuth hounds you'll have to wait until I post on social media all of these images, but Maggie
00:56:41
Speaker
If you would scroll down to where I have shared with you images at the end, you will see the progression. So you're gonna see the first image as like a clay model. At the end of it, you see some like age regression. That last drawing kind of makes her look younger. Then you can see how it got a little bit better as time went on. But look on the next page,
00:57:10
Speaker
at what she really actually likely looked like from the 2010. Okay, so not the green background, but keep going. Yes.
00:57:24
Speaker
Oh, she's pretty. Yeah, that's likely what she looked like. And now if you continue scrolling, you will see the Jaws Extra. Also, it doesn't look anything like the woman in the first photo, but, you know, what else? Oh, I know. I know. Okay, Jaws Extra. Hold on. Let me look at her again. Okay. Got it. I feel like you could totally see how. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Or even from the picture with a green background. Yeah.
00:57:53
Speaker
very similar to this Jaws extra. So you can see why when he came up with this theory, I mean, everybody jumped on it. They're like, yes, this is her, right?
00:58:08
Speaker
And one would have hoped, like you said, that we then could have been able to identify her. But unfortunately, the film's producers did not keep record of the names of the hundreds of individuals who had volunteered as extras in the movie. So they had no way of like looking through a list to find the woman's identity.
00:58:32
Speaker
Producers and many others, unlike you and me, who think that this theory is possible, they actually argue that the likelihood of this extra being the lady of the dunes is improbable because they argue that this clothing style was common in the 1970s. Many women had long hair like the extra.
00:58:58
Speaker
Hill, Stephen King's son, went on to point out that at least six other extras on the film who were seen later in the film all had blue bandanas in their hair. And I think he's pointing that out, not to show that it was like a common style in the 70s, but kind of implying that maybe these bandanas were a common prop on the film. And like maybe a marker that the woman was an extra in Jaws.
00:59:27
Speaker
But many people still say no. Now, what I will say is that I feel like with this image from Jaws, this extra from Jaws being shown everywhere and like all these theories that this extra is the lady of the dunes, that somebody you would think since 2015, I mean, we're still talking like seven years ago, would have come forward and been like, no, that's not the lady of the dunes. That's me.
00:59:57
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. And nobody has. The unidentified woman known as the Lady of the Dunes was buried in St. Peter Cemetery in October 1974.
01:00:12
Speaker
However, as DNA testing improves, her body has actually been exhumed several times in order to attempt to identify her through new breakthrough strategies. Her body was exhumed in 1980, in 2000, and 2014. In 2014, because some donations had been made actually in her honor to improve the quality of her casket.
01:00:41
Speaker
While previous DNA testing has yet to reveal the woman's identity, all of those attempts were fruitless. As recently as 2019, the body was again exhumed to compare the victim's DNA with those who have participated in genealogical family tree sites, you know, like 23andMe or whatever.
01:01:08
Speaker
No results have yet been printed. I personally would love to see like genetic genealogists through the DNA Doe Project take on this case. But in the meantime, until we have those DNA results, the best we have are the theories that I've mentioned. So Maggie, which theory seems the most plausible to you? I just really appreciate how much
01:01:38
Speaker
like effort went into developing this Jaws theory, and it kind of makes sense. Like it could be this girl. Yeah. And maybe she trusted the wrong person. Like, who knows? Maybe there are people out there. This is scary to think about, but maybe there are people out there who like volunteer as extras on these movie sets because, you know, they're trying to prey upon other people.
01:02:07
Speaker
I'm sure that that happens. And so I do think the bandana, I think there's a point there to be taken. So I'm with you. I think there's some validity to it. Carved on the gravestone for the lady of the dunes is only the factual inscription, unidentified female body.
01:02:35
Speaker
found race points dunes. Though she was given a small ceremony when she was first interred in 1974, funeral director Robert Roth told John Wood of the Boston Globe staff in 1974, quote, it may sound sentimental, but I felt there should be some kind of service. After all, she was a human being. She might have wanted it, end quote.
01:03:04
Speaker
In most of the cases we cover here on Coffee and Cases, we are trying to figure out who the perpetrator was. In rare cases like this one, we are also on a desperate search to name the victim. This young lady had a name. She was someone's daughter, someone's friend. She was someone with a name and someone who could be claimed by someone. We cannot let her remain
01:03:32
Speaker
unidentified female body, but should tell her story. Ask projects like the DNA Doe Project to continue their hard work in hopes that one day we can follow Rest in Peace with a proclamation of this woman's name to let her know that she's not alone.
01:03:56
Speaker
Anyone with information is asked to call the Provincetown Police Department, Detective Meredith Lober, at 508-487-1212. Or to remain anonymous, call Provincetown Crimeline Tips at 508-487-2828.
01:04:21
Speaker
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01:04:50
Speaker
Stay together. Stay safe. We'll see you next week.